SAVEGUARD ⟼ leon s. kennedy

xi. gentle, but firm

"Take it easy," Leon says, as he rushes to crouch next to me, placing a gentle arm on my back, checking to see if I'm okay. "You got hit pretty badly..."

I feel embarrassed at being the one to get hit by something that is so easily killed. "I'm fine," I say through gritted teeth, and force myself to stand up. "I just need to patch this up and take some painkillers."

"Let's head for the infirmary, before any more of those things pop up," he says, his hand still on my back. "Damn, we got outnumbered pretty quickly."

"I got it," I say, shrugging his hand off me. I don't want him to think I'm incapable of handling my own.

"It's okay," he says quietly, taking a step away from me, his arms at his sides. "I'm here if you need me."

•

In the infirmary, Leon barricades the cabin-door, so we can take a breather in peace.

Peace. As if a thing exists on this forsaken cruise ship.

I clean the bite wound on my bicep as best as I can, but then Leon reminds me to apply alcohol on it, so it doesn't infect.

"What, like I'll turn into one of those things?" I say, my breath catching in my throat. The anxiety rises like a cloud in my stomach, and it creeps into my lungs.

"I don't think so," he says, and closes the distance between us, as if he senses my panic. "I won't let that happen. But alcohol will help with bacterial infections."

"Promise me you'll shoot me before I turn into a mutated fish," I say, and even though I mean for it to be a joke, I feel a tear slide down my cheek, and just like that, the cloud of anxiety is in my lungs.

"Hey, it won't get to that," Leon says, and sits next to me on the nurse's bed.

I nod and wipe away at my tears. "I hope you're right."

"I probably am." He pats my knee. "Need help with the rubbing alcohol?"

I nod again, and hand him the bottle, knowing I won't have the courage to do it.

"It's going to sting like hell," he says.

"Can you count down to zero?" I ask him, resting my head back against the wall, bracing for the sting.

"If you want me to," he says, and wets a cotton ball. He grips my elbow, and I wince as he does. "Ready?"

"Yes."

"Alright, three, two..."

"Don't pause! It will make it worse," I groan.

"You're pulling your arm away from me," he says, the corner of his lip turning up into a small smile. "Look at me, forget the bite for a second," he tells me, and then he dips his head a little to hold eye contact with me.

I feel myself getting lost in his eyes, like he's trying to tell me something just by the way he's looking right at me, and then, I feel his grip soften on my arm. I relax my shoulder, and before I know it, before either of us blink, he pushes the cotton ball straight onto the bite.

I wince, and instinctively grab his free hand, pressing my nails into his palm. "Fuck!"

"I know," he says gently, but he keeps the cotton-ball pressed firmly against my skin. "Keep pressing my hand. But try not to scream again."

He lets me grip his hand, and I press until the sting subsides a little, and after a few seconds he tears the cotton-ball away, examines the wound, re-wets the cotton-ball, and does it again without telling me. I bite my lip to keep quiet, but it stings like a bitch.

"Almost done," he murmurs, and when he pulls it away from my bicep, he grabs a new cotton-ball to do the same thing to the slash across my neck. "Lift your chin a little," he says quietly, as he traces the back of his fingers across the skin of my neck, close to where the slash is.

Despite the pain pulsating through my whole upper body, I feel goosebumps at his gentle touch, and as he examines my neck, I keep my eyes on the blond locks of his hair falling past his brow.

"This one isn't nearly as deep," he tells me.

When Leon presses the cotton-ball into my neck the second time, he looks up at me, concern sketched out all over his facial features. His face is so close to mine that I can hear his quiet breathing, smell his hair— it smells like lemon balm and sage leaf— and I pull myself back, in case he can hear how fast my heart is beating.

"You okay?" He asks, as he pulls the cotton-ball away from my skin.

"I'm okay," I parrot.

"How's your breathing?" He asks, as he chucks the cotton-balls into a nearby bin. 

I take a deep breath to check. "All good, doc," I say with a weak smile.

"Glad to hear it, nurse," he says, smiling. 

A laugh escapes from my chest. "What is it with you and nurses?"

Leon hands me a bandage, and I start wrapping it across my arm. "Never really cared until we found that thong in the VIP room," he says, shrugging.

I feel butterflies in my chest as I remember what he had said back at the casino - "I was thinking the same for you" -  when I joked he'd look good in one of those satin things. "You don't even know what that nurse looked like," I say, trying not to let my tone resemble anything close to jealousy.

"True," he says, "But I know what you look like."

Then, he looks me up and down, almost as if he...

No. 

I turn away from him and feel my cheeks flush. We're here, on a ghost ship, surrounded by flesh-eating mutated corpses, I'm injured, he's a special agent, I just got broken up with. I'm imaging it.

Leon Kennedy is not looking at me almost as if he wishes he could undress me with his eyes.

Nope.

When his eyes meet mine again, he adds, "You get good at imagining things when you're on long missions, away from home."

I swallow. "Yeah?" 

He nods, and stretches his back. "Good to see you're handling your anxiety better. We should rest a bit."

And just like that, he sits down on the floor, his back to the barricaded door. "You should rest a bit, until those painkillers kick in, at least." He points to the nurse's stretcher. 

I sit back down, my head spinning. 

Maybe it's the painkillers already kicking in, or maybe it's the smell of rubbing alcohol, or maybe, it's the way he looked at me with those sky-blue eyes.